Carol Schwartz AO with Shelly Porges (Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Beyond The Billion) at the Australian launch event

Our Female-Led Venture Portfolio, led by Carol Schwartz AO, Chenelle Tanglao and Sarah Buckley, invests in female fund managers and female founders for strong commercial returns.

We invest in female fund managers, driving impact at scale. Funding female capital allocators is a critical element in creating a fairer and better performing investment ecosystem.

We invest directly in underrepresented female founders, tapping into a vast pool of untapped potential in female entrepreneurship.

We need more capital in the hands of women – both from a founder and a funder standpoint:
The business case is clear: gender diversity unlocks remarkable commercial opportunities

Research consistently demonstrates that diverse teams, featuring talented female leaders, drive superior business performance.

Companies with top-quartile gender diversity in their executive teams are 21% more likely to outperform the market on profitability and 27% more likely to have great value creation.

Private technology companies led by women are more capital-efficient, achieving 35% higher ROI, and when venture-backed, 12% higher revenue than startups run by men, according to the Kauffman Foundation.

Female-led ventures are consistently underfunded

In 2022, U.S. startups with all-women teams received 1.9% (or around $4.5 billion) out of around the $238.3 billion in venture capital allocated, according to PitchBook data

In Australia – while 22% of start-up founders are women – only 9% of capital raising deals went to solely women-founded teams, and only 0.7% of total capital ($) was raised by solely women-founded teams in 2022.

We know that diverse teams = more diverse outcomes

Women venture capitalists are 2x more likely to invest in women compared to their male counterparts.

Unfortunately, there are not enough women in decision-making positions to write these cheques. In the US, only 15.2% of cheque-writers were female (2021). The difference in gender mix for VC firms is stark: 59.6% have all-male cheque-writing teams, while only 3.8% have all-female cheque-writing teams.

Our Partners

We are proud to support the following female-led companies and funds:

Ecosystem builder
We champion female entrepreneurs and fund managers – reshaping Australia’s capital allocation paradigm in the venture ecosystem.

Key highlights:

  • Our Founder Carol Schwartz AO is the Australian Lead and Global Advisory Board Member in Beyond the Billion, the first and largest global consortium of venture funds deploying over US $1 billion in women-founded companies.

  • We are proud members of ‘Equity Clear‘, an initiative of leading VC funds committed to greater transparency to address gender imbalance in Australian startup funding.

  • We share learnings and insights, creating opportunities for open conversations.

  • We facilitate collaboration and expand investor networks to increase available capital.

Recent media & resources

Tractor Ventures – Gender Funding Gap Series (Nov 2024): Why VC firms should invest in more women

Australian Financial Review (June 2024): Tenacious Ventures lives up to its name with $18m raise in hard market

Australian Financial Review (March 2024): Meet the next wave of self-made women

Australian Financial Review (Dec 2023): Forrest family leads Rich List plunge on packaging disrupter

Women’s Agenda (Nov 2023): Carol Schwartz’s investment ‘strategy pivot’ toward women-owned VC funds

Australian Financial Review (Oct 2023): Forrest, Denholm families unite to create more female millionaires

TechCrunch (Oct 2023): ALIAVIA Ventures Fights Gender funding inequalities in the US and Australia

Australian Financial Review (Oct 2023): ‘Nice to charge in USD’: Aussie start ups’ unexpected boom

InnovationAus (Oct 2023): Aliavia closes $13.5m female-focused venture fund

SmartCompany (Oct 2023): Aliavia closes $13.5 million fund for women-led startups in Australia and US

Australian Financial Review (Oct 2023): Kate Morris’ goal is to make 10 other women ‘really wealthy’

Women’s Agenda (Oct 2023): ‘We want more female-led billion dollar startups’: Robyn Denholm and Carol Schwartz back female-led VC

Forbes Australia (Aug 2023): The venture catalyst: How Carol Schwartz is changing the game for women-led businesses

Startup Daily (May 2023): Susan Oliver & Carol Schwartz hand over women-focused angel startup fund Scale Investors to the next generation

Get in touch

We’d love to hear from you! If you have an opportunity you think would be a good fit, please:

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